Make it Occur

You're watching the news and witness a political figure making what strikes you as an utterly appalling decision. Instantly, indignation surges through your system. Your mind races with judgment, perhaps even fantasies of what you'd say to them if given the chance. In that moment of complete reactivity, does it even occur to you that you could feel completely different?

Probably not.

When we're caught in the grip of anger, disappointment, or fear, we're utterly consumed by the drama. The possibility of stepping back, of observing rather than drowning in the emotional storm, simply doesn't cross our minds. We're so identified with the reaction that we become it. Which is the source of all sorrow.

This is the predicament: if shifting into awareness doesn't occur to us when we most need it, how do we make it occur?

Through practice.

Practice transforms the unconscious into the conscious. What never occurs to us becomes increasingly available through repetition. At first, we won't catch ourselves in the thick of reactivity. But we can catch ourselves afterward. Five minutes later, five hours later, five years later, whenever awareness returns.

"Oh," we notice, "I completely lost myself in that upset. I became the anger rather than witnessing it."

Then we practice the shift. We redirect attention from the story of what happened back into pure awareness—that spacious presence that observes all experience without being touched by it. We don't try to fix the past reaction; we simply practice returning home to the observer. From which we can respond to any situation far more effectively than any reactionary retort.

Each time we make this conscious shift, we're training the mind. We're creating new grooves of possibility. With enough repetition, something remarkable happens: the gap between reaction and recognition grows shorter.

As A Course in Miracles teaches: "A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false."

Eventually, through patient practice, it begins to occur to us—even in the heat of the moment—that we have a choice.

Join me in Thursday's class where we'll explore practical methods for making this essential shift occur and discover the freedom that emerges from conscious awareness. I look forward to seeing you then.